If Trump’s Problem Is OPEC, His Solution Is Iran
The group doesn't have the spare capacity to replace the loss of output from sanctions on Iran.
If only he understood what OPEC did before he told it what to do.
Photographer: Yuri Gripas/Bloomberg
President Donald Trump has once again taken to Twitter to slam OPEC for driving up oil prices. The group is a useful scapegoat on which to pin the blame for rising gasoline prices at home, but getting it to pump more crude won’t bring them down for long. The way to really lower prices is for him to change his policy on Iran.
Unfortunately, that’s not likely to happen, so oil prices could well keep rising. Oil prices have climbed by more than 50 percent in a year, and very nearly touched $80 a barrel last week as traders anticipated that the world’s margin of spare production capacity available to offset supply disruptions is set to seriously shrink.